Dexterous surgical manipulators provide a small surgical “hand,” or gripper, which can access hard-to-reach places, such as a throat or a body cavity during laparoscopic surgery. The gripper is operable by a user interface, which translates motions performed by a surgeon on the user interface into motions performed by the gripper. User interfaces are typically non-intuitive and require practice and experience to use. Motions performed by the surgeon on the user interface may be reversed or mirrored when outputted by the gripper, and motions of the surgeon's hand may not correspond intuitively with motions of the gripper.